Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

How do you get a wizard's DC up?

Boost INT and take Spell Focus feats, basically. Some PrCs will do it as well.

You want to aim for the highest possible stat mod for your casting class, and using Prcs like archmage, blood magus, shadow adept or red wizard to get your caster level to 35 or 38, in addition to epic spell focus in a school.

Specifically, you gain a DC for every 3 epic levels so to Tsid's point at 32, 35 and 38 you gain an additional DC. So increasing caster level DC comes from pumping your casting stat as high as possible, taking spell focus feats and taking classes to increase caster level. That said a wizard(for example) with max INT and spell focus feats can do fine even if you don't want to go archmage, shadow adept, blood mage or red wizard. Reaching 34 INT with epic focus in necromancy will provide solid dc's even without the extra 1-3 points from specialty classes. I have an epic illusionist and his dc's are solid without any prc's.

EDIT: Fixed sleepy error...

chad878262 wrote:Specifically, you gain a DC for every 3 epic levels so to Tsid's point at 32, 35 and 38 you gain an additional DC. So increasing caster level comes from pumping your casting stat as high as possible, taking spell focus feats and taking classes to increase caster level. That said a wizard(for example) with max INT and spell focus feats can do fine even if you don't want to go archmage, shadow adept, blood mage or red wizard. Reaching 34 INT with epic focus in necromancy will provide solid dc's even without the extra 1-3 points from specialty classes. I have an epic illusionist and his dc's are solid without any prc's.

You probably know what you're talking about, but I believe you write it down wrongly

The spell focus feats and the casting stat do not increase Caster Level. Instead, they increase the DC directly, meaning it's three times as effective as increasing the Caster Level. Most of the PrCs increase Caster Level, which means that every three additions cause an extra 1 DC after level 20.

Of course, Caster Level is also used to determine duration and some other level-dependent factors (such as damage), but that wasn't the question

Btw, can anyone suggest any neutral-aligned (preferably Chaotic-Neutral) max DC wizard build, but - due to RP reasons - without Archmage/Red Wizard/Shadow Adept? Blood Magus may still work.

Shad wrote:Btw, can anyone suggest any neutral-aligned (preferably Chaotic-Neutral) max DC wizard build, but - due to RP reasons - without Archmage/Red Wizard/Shadow Adept? Blood Magus may still work.

Note BM will give you evil points at later levels.

Neutral-good DC mage, is inferior. It is a design issue, pretty much.

An off question - was Practiced Spellcaster "exploit" fixed? I'm talking about situation when you intentionaly lower CL below 30 with one dead spellcasting level and take PS to break above (+4 CL).

Yes, Practised Spellcaster no longer lets you exceed your HD in terms of caster level bonuses. Only special class features allow that now.

Sokolsky wrote:You probably know what you're talking about, but I believe you write it down wrongly

The spell focus feats and the casting stat do not increase Caster Level. Instead, they increase the DC directly, meaning it's three times as effective as increasing the Caster Level. Most of the PrCs increase Caster Level, which means that every three additions cause an extra 1 DC after level 20.

Of course, Caster Level is also used to determine duration and some other level-dependent factors (such as damage), but that wasn't the question

Well now I think you misunderstood Chad a little

For each 3 caster levels past 20 you get +1 DC bonus. This bonus stacks with DC increases from ability bonuses. Therefore, the highest possible DC spellcaster should take a combination of both of these, mostly for the sake of utility.

You only get 5 epic level feats + class bonus feats (max 3 for 30 wizard/sorc). So thats +8 Greater Int/Cha you can add, or +4 DC. You get no other epic feats or epic spells besides the ability bonus, mind you. Of course you could drop that to Greater INT/CHA VI and take an epic spell and Epic Spell focus.

You can spend 4 levels in bloodmage, 4 in Archmage and 10 in RWoT for a total of +8 caster levels in your specialised RWoT school, which nets a bonus +3 DC points above 30th level and still 5 (or 7, if you know how to build RWoT properly ) epic bonus feats to pick.

10 levels of Shadow Adept will net you +7 caster levels in the schools of illusion, necromancy & enchantment (but -4 in evocation, transmutation and conjuration). Add 4 levels of Blood Magus to that and you've got +8 caster levels, or +3 DCs, in those three schools, and still 5 epic bonus feats to pick.

So as you can see, while technically going for Greater INT/CHA VIII gives the most overall bonus to epic DCs, taking classes with bonuses to Caster Level will result in a more rounded character with a few epic spells to hurl around. And who doesn't want those!

I think that Wizard 30 is a rather cool concept. Well rounded, lots of spells and no constraints on RP. And unique. I think deathgrowl once posted couple of builds with pure wizard.

TheLier wrote:

Shad wrote:Btw, can anyone suggest any neutral-aligned (preferably Chaotic-Neutral) max DC wizard build, but - due to RP reasons - without Archmage/Red Wizard/Shadow Adept? Blood Magus may still work.

Note BM will give you evil points at later levels.

Neutral-good DC mage, is inferior. It is a design issue, pretty much.

Some evil points is acceptable, it is extremes by evil-good axis in either direction which I dislike to RP. And for all my toons I choose concept first, and try to do best build following the concept, not the other way. And its more challenging that way.

My point is, if it would be as making more standard high-CL casters with aforementioned classes, which is already described so much with examples (just google site:bgtscc.net high DC wizard), I would not ask about it.

I like the idea of taking pure or pureish Wizard or Sorc levels as being a viable alternative to the standard PRC combos. Perhaps when they add class kits they will make it a way to differentiate them as a mainclass so maybe bare that in mind for the future, no idea if that's anywhere near underway though.

I have a character who has 26 lvls in sorcerer because it fits her RP and desired playstyle, even though it isn't a good build power wise.

The high amount of Wiz/Sorc levels is also the only way to buff your familiar (an often overlooked part of caster rp). Since my familiar is a big part of my character's RP that also works well for me. I personally think it would be cool and diversifying if at high wizard or Sorcerer levels. You got some kind of bonus to it (perhaps making them magical beasts or with more skills in their own right, my rabbit should have way more points in listen if its an epic lvl rabbit!) again, this could be a kit.

Sorry off-topic, but other people have covered the ways to increase DCs pretty well. But making a DC caster whilst being on the good part of the axis is very limiting. As Tsid said, from a power perspective adding PRCs means not wasting epic feats on stats and getting to pick fun things instead. Archmage is the least RP-limiting of the few if you're not into the idea the niche casters though.

Sokolsky wrote:

chad878262 wrote:Specifically, you gain a DC for every 3 epic levels so to Tsid's point at 32, 35 and 38 you gain an additional DC. So increasing caster level comes from pumping your casting stat as high as possible, taking spell focus feats and taking classes to increase caster level. That said a wizard(for example) with max INT and spell focus feats can do fine even if you don't want to go archmage, shadow adept, blood mage or red wizard. Reaching 34 INT with epic focus in necromancy will provide solid dc's even without the extra 1-3 points from specialty classes. I have an epic illusionist and his dc's are solid without any prc's.

You probably know what you're talking about, but I believe you write it down wrongly

The spell focus feats and the casting stat do not increase Caster Level. Instead, they increase the DC directly, meaning it's three times as effective as increasing the Caster Level. Most of the PrCs increase Caster Level, which means that every three additions cause an extra 1 DC after level 20.

Of course, Caster Level is also used to determine duration and some other level-dependent factors (such as damage), but that wasn't the question

Yeah, never type at 5AM! You are correct that I wrote CL when I meant DC. I fixed the original post even though Tsid was kind enough to elaborate what I meant.

Shad wrote:Btw, can anyone suggest any neutral-aligned (preferably Chaotic-Neutral) max DC wizard build, but - due to RP reasons - without Archmage/Red Wizard/Shadow Adept? Blood Magus may still work.

Since people talke about almost pure wizard how about a wizard 26/archmage 4 ? It is nothing to trifle with :

http://nwn2db.com/build/?251242

CL 32, DC 29 + spell level everywhere, 31 + spell level for one particular school.

Valefort wrote:

Shad wrote:Btw, can anyone suggest any neutral-aligned (preferably Chaotic-Neutral) max DC wizard build, but - due to RP reasons - without Archmage/Red Wizard/Shadow Adept? Blood Magus may still work.

Since people talke about almost pure wizard how about a wizard 26/archmage 4 ? It is nothing to trifle with :

http://nwn2db.com/build/?251242

CL 32, DC 29 + spell level everywhere, 31 + spell level for one particular school.

Thanks for reply.

Please note I asked about a build without Archmage/RWoT/SA . I think being archmage is not something one should simply write in backstory, one should live to that, and I have no intention to do it. Scholar - ok. Slightly mad Bloodmage-experimentator - ok. No application classes, no high maguses of high circles. Just best among equals, normal, ordinal people with epic level magic (not necessary epic spells).

There were pure Wizard 30 builds too. Still, I feel pure 30 is dull.